Brogan's Goal: Get Rid Of Bad Teachers

TALLAHASSEE — The rules may soon get tougher for those who teach Florida's 2.3 million public school students.

Education Commissioner Frank Brogan, who helped engineer reforms aimed at improving student performance, has turned his sights on toughening the standards for teachers.

''Before it's all over, I'll be branded as a teacher basher and all the like,'' said Brogan, a Republican who has had a hostile relationship with the state's two teacher unions since his election in 1994. ''But it's time we take some of these issues on. It's long overdue.''

In October 1995, Brogan appointed three state task forces to evaluate how teachers get and keep their jobs and how they perform in the classroom. Last Tuesday, the task force reports were delivered to Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Cabinet in their role as the state Board of Education.

Among the recommendations:

Make it easier to get bad teachers out of the classroom by eliminating tenure - long considered one of education's ''sacred cows'' - for all teachers hired after July 1, 1997.

Give parents more input on rating their children's teachers and give poor-performing teachers 120 days to clean up their acts.

Put more emphasis on reading, math, science and language arts in the elementary grades.

Develop a system to reward the best teachers.

Do a five-year study to determine how teachers who earned their degrees from Florida universities perform in the classroom.

''I think we have mainstream recommendations that are widely acceptable,'' Brogan said. ''The time is right to take these issues up.''

Toward that end, Brogan plans to seek legislative sponsors to file bills addressing most of the task force recommendations. He expects a battle, especially from the unions, but thinks a plus in his favor is the fact he is dealing with a Republican-controlled Legislature.

''In politics, timing is everything, and the timing is right,'' said Wayne Blanton, head of the Florida School Boards Association, who generally supports task force recommendations. The biggest brouhaha will undoubtedly come over tenure or guaranteed employment.

When it came to tenure, the state task force examining teacher contracts and performance thought a change was necessary.

''One of the issues that kept coming up from members of the task force was: 'Why are educators entitled to tenure when individuals in other walks of life do not get such a guarantee?' '' said Ron Wright, who chaired the panel.

Florida's veteran public school teachers enjoy certain protections that make firing them practically impossible.

Getting rid of bad teachers in Florida's public schools - especially those with tenure - remains a rare feat, largely because state law defining competency is so vague, said Wright, director of Professional Standards for the Broward County school system.

In Florida, teachers are on probation for their first three years and can be fired at any time without cause. After serving three years, however, teachers get a three-year ''professional services contract'' that can be canceled only after a complaint of incompetence and a usually long legal battle.

Teachers must be given two years before the district can let them go: one year to identify the problem and one to correct it.

And that's if the teachers union doesn't put up a fight on their behalf.

''It's expensive, and it takes too long,'' the School Board Association's Blanton said. ''We don't have too many in that category, but keeping them for two years is ridiculous.''

Supporters of tenure say it is designed to protect teachers from arbitrary firings. But critics say it has become very difficult to get rid of incompetent teachers.

''You'll hear landslides of rhetoric on this,'' Brogan predicted. ''(But) we've gone so far to the extreme in protecting a minority of weak individuals. I'm a certified classroom teacher, but I never felt I needed tenure to protect me. I felt my work would protect me.''

Aaron Wallace, president of the Florida Teaching Profession-National Education Association, one of the state's two teacher unions, said there isn't a big problem with bad teachers.

''As I talk to teachers, they don't want poor performers on the team either,'' Wallace said.

Wallace said teachers want many of the same things parents want, but he does expect a battle over the tenure issue.

''It's just one of those myths that there is a capsule protecting teachers. There are provisions there to protect the classroom,'' he said.

While the proposal to eliminate tenure for future teachers will generate the most commotion, other recommendations also are revolutionary.

The proposal would dramatically reduce the time - from two years to four months - that teachers identified as ineffective would have to improve.

And school administrators would be judged on how well they evaluate teachers. Parents have long been concerned that principals would rather protect bad teachers than admit a problem.

''There was concern (from panel members) that evaluation may not be done as honestly and as accurately as it needs to be done,'' said Wright. ''Telling someone they're not doing a good job is a painful thing and people like to avoid pain.''